Floating Leaves
by UnmatchedSocks
Summary: Here among the leaves, where children run through the streets and shop owners smile and wave, it is easy to believe the propaganda. That Konaha is the 'nice' ninja village. That those aren't child soldiers, they are young shinobi burning bright with the will of fire. But I have seen the battlefields where strength is the only true virtue. And I want no part of this.
1. Home Is Where The Hive Is

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Reincarnation I mean. It was supposed to be fun. One more go around. A chance to fix all the things I'd so royally fucked up the first time. And ya know, when I first saw the headbands, etched with a stylized leaf, I wasn't even mad. I giggled and laughed right along with the smiling woman staring down at me. I could live with this, I thought. It would be a lot of hard work, but I could live with this. I should have known better. I should have looked harder at the clothes the smiling woman wore. Should have noticed the unnatural way she seemed to vibrate as she hummed a lullaby. It had all been right there, but I was just so tired. I was always tired in those early days. Truth be told I still am, but I don't sleep so well anymore.

The day started, as most do here, with me and the smiling woman. The degrading nature of our morning ritual once again highlighting the myriad inadequacies of this new, tinier form. The most frustrating part was that I had long since attained control over my bodily functions. That little problem had gained my full and undivided attention after the first incident. I had never been so mortified in my life. It was humiliating, and no amount of cooing or funny faces was gonna convince me otherwise. The problem was this body. The physical act of getting to the bathroom was well and truly beyond me. So I was left to simply endure my humiliation.

The only other thing I had to occupy my vast amounts of newly acquired free time was this delightful new sensation of chakra all around me. It was sticky and thick and somehow managed to find its way into everything. I loved feeling it twist and bend as I clumsily waved my hands through the air. How could anyone be blind to this? When I first arrived it took me days to shake the feeling of drowning. It would flow like water into my lungs every time I took a breath, but never quite mixed with the chakra already there. This warm ball of energy that spider-webbed out from my core. For a long time, I was unsure of how exactly to touch it. I could feel it swirling lazily, but for nearly three months it refused to answer my calls. Then one day, like finding a muscle I'd never felt before, it moved. I'd grabbed, and yanked with all the subtly of a hand grenade, and the effects were immediate. My vision swam as chakra jumped to answer my call, draining from my extremities and towards my core. It was clear that I had nowhere near enough to be playing with, and in the last moment before the world faded out I was sure I was about to die… again.

When I regained consciousness I was once again in the smiling lady's arms. It occurred to me this was the first time I had ever seen her frown. She looked worried and kept glancing around like something was going to pop out of the walls. And that's when I noticed the walls, covered in bugs from floor to ceiling. They buzzed, and hummed, and crawled around everything. They were all over the smiling lady too, but she didn't seem to realize it. I reached up. I wanted to tell her, wanted to warn her, but stopped when I realized they were on me as well. Not just on me. I watched in horror as one crawled into a small hole I had never noticed on the inside of my wrist. Then all at once, I could feel them! They were crawling inside me, eating the chakra that leaked out!

And that's when I started screaming.

It was somewhere in the middle of day two that my voice finally gave out. I had long since been restrained in a blanket to stop my attempts at physically digging the bugs out of my skin. Now, with just the humming of the smiling lady, I could hear them inside me. The skittering of tiny legs as they crawled just beneath the skin. They were in my arms, and my chest, and my face! God how I missed the screaming. For the hundredth time, I struggled against the tightly wrapped blanket and for the hundredth time I lost. Pathetic. It's the only word I had to describe this sorry form. I tried to scream again, but managed only the sound of air. It did nothing to drown skittering, and with this new found quiet there also came an awareness of something else. It wasn't a sound, there were no words, but it was most certainly a question. Like the rising inflection at the end of a conversation, you weren't really listening to. I looked to the smiling lady to see if she's the source when it came again, and I knew it wasn't her.

There was something in my head. I could feel it just sitting there, watching, only truly visible when it moved, when it asked that wordless question. I didn't know what it wanted, but it felt wrong, alien in all the worst ways. The question came again and again, but I just sat there, frozen, too scared to reply. I could feel the tears running down my cheeks, could see the concerned look on the smiling woman's face, but I didn't answer when she called to me. What if I took my focus off this thing and when I looked back it was gone? I didn't think I could handle knowing it was watching and not being able to see it. The smiling woman's face was morphing from concern to panic as she started running for the door, still calling my name, but I couldn't pay her any mind. The thing in my head had started circling, like something feral trying to decide whether or not I was food. I wanted to run and hide, but I didn't know how, and still, the question repeated like a mantra.

My concentration broke as the world blurred with a twist of the smiling woman's chakra. One second we were outside the house, the next there was nothing but wind and speed. I never imagined anything could move so fast. Then it ended, and we were outside a hospital. It felt somehow wrong that such a trip could end in anything but an explosion.

My musings were cut short by the feeling of a looming presence. When I looked the thing was no longer hiding, no longer content to hover at the edges of my senses. It sat, so close I could touch it and stared. This time when the question came its meaning was clear. 'Who are you?' Its voice echoed through my mind with the layered lilt of hundreds. A writhing mass, like flies, swarmed too thick to see the carcass beneath. My crying started anew but I needed to answer. I didn't want to see what it would do if I refused.

'My name is…' What was it the smiling lady always called me? 'Akira. Akira Aburame I suppose,' for there really was only one clan I could be a part of. 'What are you?'

The question was met with a flurry of activity, like kicking a wasp's nest. It seemed unsure at first, before simply lurching forward to engulf me. I tried to scream. Distantly I was aware of doctors and nurses hustling around, but all I could focus on is how intimately I felt every insect that had turned my body into a hive. I could see exactly how many were inside me, and exactly where each one was. It made the whole thing so much worse. And over and over I could hear them answering my question. 'We are Akira Aburame.'

We spent the next few days in the hospital, being poked and prodded by one doctor after another.

"An abnormal chakra spike."

"Hive growing too fast for the patient's age."

"Chakra melding at a worrying pace."

We were one. We watched ourselves crawling through tunnels of flesh in a hundred sets of eyes, even as we felt revulsion at the sensation. We felt the moment foreign chakra entered our body. Felt it trying to separate us, to scatter our mind, and make us so much less than we were. But we would not be scattered. We devoured the chakra as fast as it came, used it to make ourselves stronger. We were a swarm, a hive, and that's how we would remain.

The doctor spoke in a detached voice, with just enough empathy to keep from sounding cold. "Attempts to separate your daughter from her hive have been unsuccessful. The integration between the two progressed far more rapidly than anyone could have anticipated. Children at this age simply don't have enough sense of self to hold off such an aggressive hive, nor have they formed the mental barriers necessary to keep their minds separate from one of this size. We could attempt to destroy the hive, but with the level of integration we are seeing it would almost certainly break her mentally. I'm sorry Ms. Mana, there's nothing else we can do."

We watched as the smiling woman seemed to collapse in on herself, her face twisting in grief. It hurt to see something so full of life shatter so completely. We were still here, could still smile and laugh in that way that would make her smile in return. At least we thought we could.

The smiling woman continued to sob as the doctor explained the procedure in cases like these. We would remain under observation in hopes of recovery. Chances were slim, but not impossible. All the while we simply stared, even as the smiling lady was ushered out the door. And somewhere, deep down, we knew that was wrong.

It took me four weeks to climb back to the surface. Still part of the hive, still a collective, but no longer just another insignificant piece of the whole. I was not some child to be devoured so easily. I had lived for 28 years, and this was my mind, my body, my hive. All of them were extensions of me, not the other way around. We may think together, but I made the rules, and the swarm fell in line. After so long lost in the collective it felt fantastic to be _mostly_ me again. I didn't even mind the way my vision splintered hundreds of ways. I threw my head back and laughed, half childish wonder, half exhausted relief. The sound brought the night nurse running, and soon the small room was crowded with people all talking over each other. The hive helped me untangle the mess of sound into individual conversations, but the only one I cared about was the woman who held me in a death grip as she mumbled thank yous over and over.

Over the next few weeks, it became increasingly apparent that our connection remained just as strong as it had ever been. When I was engaged, listening to the smiling woman as she read, or puzzling over the shifting swirls of chakra, everything was fine. I was me, and the gentle pull at the back of my mind was easy enough to ignore. But as my mind slowed down that pull did not. After something as simple as daydreaming I would come back to myself and be surprised at how far I'd slipped into the collective. Thoughts came fast and fluid, but understanding even the most basic emotions was a herculean task. I could feel myself being hollowed out, the parts that made me human nowhere to be found. It was an experience that was equal parts fascinating, and horrifying, and it seemed I was not the only one who noticed.

"I don't know what to do." The toddler in front of me seemed to be quite enjoying the fist he had shoved in his mouth, but I found the conversation coming from the next room over far more interesting. "It's the same every morning. I wake her up and she just stares at me. She doesn't make a sound, doesn't move a muscle, just stairs. And Yumi, I'm telling you, it's wrong. I've fought shinobi that grew up on the front lines, and I've never seen anyone with eyes that empty. It's like someone reached in and plucked out her soul…" She paused for a moment, and when she started again her voice was barely above a whisper. "Sometimes she scares me. She comes back after ten or twenty minutes and smiles. She smiles like someone trying to be comforting, sad and apologetic. Children don't smile like that. I know it sounds crazy, but the incident with her swarm was the first time I'd ever heard her cry. She never fusses, never gets upset, and rarely laughs unless I do so first. The more I look the more I notice, and it's starting to freak me out."

"Mana…"

"I know how that sounds. I get it. But what if that swarm took my daughter away, and what's left now isn't Akira?" She sounded like she was about to burst into tears. "Children don't act like that Yumi!"

Yumi let out a sigh. "She can't even crawl yet. Give her time. Maybe she's just not a fussy kid and being so close to her swarm helps her mimic faces."

"Maybe." The smiling woman sounded less than convinced, but let it drop in favor of lighter topics.

I, on the other hand, found myself going over the conversation again and again. She's scared of me? It occurred to me that I hadn't been putting any real effort into acting like a baby. Not talking was about as much as I'd managed, but maybe that was a mistake. Should I start now? No, I decided, that would be bad. The smiling woman was a trained shinobi. A sudden change in my attitude right after she expressed her concerns would turn her into a paranoid wreck. Better to continue as I was, and let her draw her own conclusions. At least I hoped so.


	2. Finding The Time

Growing up in Konoha was definitely different from growing up in San Francisco. I missed the beach and the way the fog rolled in off the ocean. Missed how the cool temperature never really changed. Here it ranged from hot to sweltering, and the oversized coats so loved by my clan did nothing to mitigate this. Not that I bothered with them myself, preferring the comfort of shorts and a t-shirt. I hated being hot, and couldn't care less if the holes in my body swarming with insects unnerved people. If they didn't want to see there were plenty of other places to look. Besides, I had better things to do than worry about what others thought of me.

From the time I could walk my mother kept me constantly busy. She could see that my swarm only became a problem when I let my mind wander, so my days were always filled to the brim with activates. There were games to play, books to read, and clan training to prepare me for the academy. When we weren't doing something she would talk endlessly on everything from local gossip, and children's stories, to clan politics and history, always asking my opinions to be sure I was paying attention. And when the subjects ran out we would sing together. My mother, armed with an endless supply of songs and seemingly no concern for the looks given to her by our stoic clan, made sure our house was always filled with music. It allowed both of us to _hear_ the moment I started to slip away.

It surprised me how quickly I'd come to love that woman. I'd never had anything close to an actual family, and I clung to it with every ounce of my being. I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to be proud, and so I trained, even though I had no interest in becoming an actual ninja. I trained until I collapsed, and then I studied. At night, when I could no longer avoid the pull of the hive, I closed my eyes tight so she couldn't see the way the light slowly dimmed. The last thing she needed was a reminder that her daughter was defective.

 _We don't truly understand our host. She stands on the precipice. A leaf floating on the water, trying to convince itself that its distance from the bottom somehow keeps it separate from the river. It is wrong. And it knows it is wrong, but it pretends all the same. Tells itself the flow of the tide is just the sway of the branches and so long as it doesn't let go nothing will change. It does not look, so it does not see how the river holds it up. It does not see how very close the bottom is._

I had every intention of spending my day furthering my understanding and control of chakra. It was like magic, twist it just so and the world would change in response. All that mattered was knowledge, power, and control. With enough of each, I could do anything. It was a goal that I'll admit quickly spiraled into an obsession. In this world of violence, and killing I just wanted to hold reality in my hands. I wanted to walk on water and swim through the earth, and dance in the sky like a bird. Surely there could be no other goal worth having… Apparently, this was not an opinion shared by all.

"But why can't you go to Yumi's house alone?" I was laying on the couch in my pajamas with an old tome on wind jutsu I'd gotten from the clan's archive. At this point, I hardly had to listening to the conversation. We had been over this enough for it to devolve into loops, and I was just getting to the part on tiger sign interaction with wind chakra.

"Because it's a play-date." She sounded more exasperated every time we went over this, but I didn't want to spend my free time hanging out with a bunch of sticky kids. "It would be a pretty bad play-date if I didn't bring you."

"They can play by themselves," I argued. "I do it all the time"

"And that's the problem. You need to make friends. You can't spend all your time alone. It's not healthy."

"I'm not alone," I said, smiling up at her. "I'm here with you." It seemed perfectly reasonable to me. She was the only person in this village I actually cared about. Why would I want to spend my time with anyone else? My mother was having none of it.

"Akira Aburame! If you have not closed that book and gotten dressed by the time I finish packing lunch I'm dressing you myself before I drag you over there." And that was the end of the conversation. It seemed that 'mom voice' was the same in every reality, and I knew better than to call her bluff. I'd die of heatstroke before we got halfway to Yumi's place. So reluctantly, I marked the page and headed for the stairs. Better to just get this over with.

The walk over was long and hot. Not worth it in my opinion, but that didn't count for much. When we finally got to Yumi's I was surprised to find it in the Inuzuka compound. I'd never seen her with a dog, but sure enough, she answered the door with the same toothy grin as always.

"Glad you could make it," she said, stepping aside to let us through. "The other kids are already out back. I'm sure they'll be glad to see you."

I did my best not to look defeated and offered the most polite bow I could muster. "Thank you for inviting me."

Yumi only laughed. "You're always welcome here kid. Now go play. Leave us old folk to our tea and gossip." And with that, I was shooed out the back door.

The yard was a madhouse of kids and dogs running every which way. Two kids with sticks fought valiantly against a group of children and puppies trying to take the treehouse, but it was clear they would soon be overrun. One girl was sleeping in the corner, half-buried in the fur of a huge black and white dog. Meanwhile, behind a row of bushes, three children had created quite the stockpile of mud balls, and judging by the grins on their evil little faces they intended to use them. I wanted to go home. Unfortunately, that was not an option at the moment so instead, I plopped down in the grass beside the only person not currently screaming.

The dog was even bigger up close. Fluffier too, but I restrained myself from reaching out to pet it. If it was less enthusiastic about this than I was I would be leaving with significantly fewer hands. Best not to risk it.

Instead, I busied myself by grabbing fistfuls of grass and watching them dance slow circles around my palm. Wind chakra, even in its most basic form, always felt wild to me. It was hard to create and even harder to mold as it constantly tried to unravel into a more comfortable shape. Still, there was an odd sense of satisfaction in the quiet test of wills. That is until my concentration was broken by the mud that splattered across the left side of my face.

Somewhere deep down I think I realized that my reaction was a tad excessive for someone who's had 33 years to learn how best to manage their emotions. The stick was probably a bit overkill, and the rocks definitely were, but I felt less bad when a passing mud ball hit the sleeping girl and she started chasing the younger children around with ninja wire. The look in her eyes made me think that maybe it would be best to just walk away. No sense in getting grouped in with the rest of them.

Slipping back inside, I spent a few minutes in the bathroom getting the mud out of my hair before making my way to the living room. Yumi was there along with my mother and a few others I didn't know. "I think I've had enough playing for one day," I stated. "Also the girl with the ninja wire looked like she was out for blood. Someone may want to check on them."

Yumi immediately bolted for the door, and I took the opportunity to drop into her empty seat. From the living room, we could hear Yumi's voice rising over the sounds of screaming children. She returned moments later muttering to herself as she dragged in the young girl by an ear.

"Let go! I can walk on my own! They started it any- Ow! Ow! Ow!" The comments stopped as Yumi gave her ear a sharp twist. The girl was plopped down beside me on the loveseat as everyone else in the room donned their 'serious adult faces.'

When Yumi finally spoke her voice was harsh and clipped. "Please explain to me why three of your cousins were strung up in a tree."

The girl beside me paled, and I decided that picking at my nails was probably the best use my time right now. This was the first I'd seen Yumi pissed, and I wanted no part of it. Better to keep the casualties to a minimum.

Staring at the ground, the girl muttered, "They were the ones who started throwing mud."

"And the appropriate response was ninja wire? What if you had tied it wrong? It could have cut off circulation to their limbs."

For a second there was genuine regret in the girl's eyes. That is before it was replaced with the type of self-righteous anger only truly found in children. "Why am I the only one getting talked to? She was pelting them with rocks!"

All eyes shifted my way, and I immediately wanted to smack her for dragging me into this. Instead, I took a deep breath, calm words, soft tones. "You can't prove that." The girl went red in the face, and I went back to picking at my nails.

"I saw you!"

"Mmmmm."

"You were screaming about 'murdering those sticky children.'"

"That doesn't sound like me."

"Everyone saw you!" She yelled. It looked like she was about to start throwing punches. I just continued absentmindedly picking. Give em enough rope and they'll hang themselves. Maybe then I could go home and finish reading that book on wind jutsu. I couldn't help but think of it as a book of magic spells, and that thought helped steady me for what had to be done.

Looking over to her, I dredged up as much pity as I could muster. "You really shouldn't lie just to get out of trouble."

Slam! I doubled over as her fist connected with my stomach. I didn't even have to fake the tears as I wheezed for breath.

"Tsume!" Yumi yelled as she pulled the girl away from me. "You're room, now!"

"I'm going home," I choked out, as I staggered to my feet. For a girl that looked to be about twelve, she hit like a truck. At least I'd got what I wanted out of it. Though I did feel bad for Yumi who apologized profusely all the way to the door. It had been mostly my fault.

It took me most of the walk home for my brain to stop focusing on the slowly forming bruise that was my payment for skipping out early and remember the name. Tsume. Tsume Inuzuka. In hindsight it was obvious. The hair, the markings, the giant dog, I should have noticed earlier, but I was far too busy sulking over all the wasted time I could have spent learning the only part of ninja training I actually liked, magic spells. This was big. Finally, I had some sense of _when_ I was. All this time the only thing I'd had to go on were the three stone faces carved into the mountainside. It was better than nothing, but The Third ruled Konoha for a very long time. Now though all it would take was some quick and dirty math to figure out I was, I was… a few years out from a war. The realization stopped me dead. A few years from a war. A war that broke both Obito and Kakashi. I was… probably older than both of them.

The idea of me in a war just didn't seem possible, but no matter how many times I went over my half-remembered timeline the results remained the same. In four years, or five, or six it didn't matter, I'd be in a war. I didn't want to be in a war, but I was already in the academy. In my desperation to impress my new mother, I had excelled. I was top of my class, and on track to graduate early. Not a hard feat surrounded by a bunch of children, but it left no room for me to quietly fail to become a genin. At this point, no one would buy that I just didn't have it in me. It would just be me running away. A cowardly act that would surely reflect terribly on my mother. The thought facing her after that scarred me worse than the war.

There had to be another way. I had seen Jonin sparing. I would die in a week on a battlefield with them. Hell, I was sure the only reason Kakashi's team made it out was that they were with Minato… And there it was, the way out. I needed to be grouped with someone too scary to kill. Minato was out because he wouldn't get a team till after I graduated. Who else was skilled enough that their mere presence changed the tide of every fight they were in? Only five came to mind. The White Fang, who would kill himself before the war even started. The Hokage, who would not be part of a squad. And the three Sanin, who were a squad unto themselves. It was hopeless. There was no way to get any of them to take me.

 _'_ _That's not true.'_

The writhing mass of voiced echoed through my mind as they pulled me down towards them. Trying to pull away, the best I could manage was to stop any further loss of ground. The hive had been content to sit and watch from a distance for so long I had almost forgotten how strong it could be when it cared to try.

 _'_ _You give up so quickly. So willing to believe the lies you weave for yourself.'_

With another sharp tug the hive pulled me closer, and I began to see their plan.

 _'_ _You are blinded by fear, that you call ignorance in an attempt to protect your pride.'_

I had no arguments for this. I could see it as clear as they did now that I had stopped fighting the pull.

 _'_ _Orochimaru likes prodigies. He also likes interesting things. We count as both, and as his passion slips towards obsession so quietly that no one has noticed, we will fill the void obsession opens in all things.'_

'We'll end up as nothing but an experiment'

 _'_ _All paths hold risk. This one no greater than any other.'_

Having said their piece, they let go and I immediately pulled myself free. Their plan was sound. Still, I spent the rest of the day trying, and failing to find an alternative.


	3. Memory Lane

_In the end, her fear had won out. She had chosen the wrong path. Intervention was necessary to improve the chances of survival._

 _"_ _I would like to test out of the academy."_

From behind his desk, the old academy instructor looked up in surprise. "Akira? You're still in your first year. Top of your class, but still a long way from Genin." Offering a placating smile he continued. "If you feel like this is going a bit slow how about we look into moving you into a few second-year classes and see how they feel?"

 _We could feel our host trying to pull free, her thoughts mixing with our own. We would not have more than today. "I would like to test out of the academy." By law, we had every right to make this request._

Instructor Hiroki sighed, this was not the first time a clan kid wanted to make a name by graduating early. "Show me your basic three."

 _Replacement, Clone, and Transformation. They were simple Jutsu, and we performed them flawlessly as was only fitting. It had always struck us as strange that our host refused to spread the mental load of forming Jutsu, instead choosing to attempt to hold each part of them herself._

When we had finished he seemed surprised, and was giving us his full attention for the first time since we had entered. Moving from behind his desk he began circling our clone, looking for any imperfections. "Impressive work Akira," he said, still circling. "Even the budges under your skin from your hive are true to the original. The only issue I can see would be the vocal inflection."

Were it not for our collective vision we would have missed his movement. As it was we were barely able to get a replacement off in time as we watched our clone's face hit the ground, one arm twisted behind her back before she exploded into smoke.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my student?" At that moment Hiroki did not sound like his normal relaxed self. He sounded dangerous, and we responded in the only appropriate manner.

Our body flicker was flawless, but the vacuum bomb that should have removed half his chest instead hit a wall as he twisted our arm aside. We were too slow with the hand seals we noted as we felt the bones in our arm snap as he continued to twist. We would have to correct that in the future. Flaring our chakra, we roared to the surface in a black haze. He had no choice but to release us. Still, we could feel our chakra plummeting as we multiplied on mass. This needed to end. As a swarm we lurched forward just as his hands came together and all the world turned to fire.

I screamed as a thousand lights extinguished, a thousand pieces of me charred to ash and cinder. In front of me I could see red and white robes; their cleanliness a stark contrast to the burning room, but my eyes would not focus. Some parts of me were still not dead. They were left half burnt half writhing not-quite-coupes scattered across the remains of what once was a classroom. They were dying! I was dying! Why was nobody helping me?! I crawled towards them, and one by one began crushing those parts of me that were in pain. I could feel the snaps and pops as they died under my own hands. I wanted to throw-up.

It wasn't 'till halfway through this processes that I remember that one of my arms had been broken, or that I had a hive that could make it quicker. But was quicker worth the risk of letting them leave the protection of my body? I didn't believe it was. So slowly, and painfully I set to finishing the task I had started in the manner in which I had started it.

"What are you doing?" This voice, the only voice I'd heard since my screams had devolved into quiet sobs, was filled with undisguised disgust. A moment later there was a pulse of chakra and senbon made of ice rained down throughout the room. Instantly the pain vanished, all except the agony of my right arm which I curled my body around as I sank into a ball on the floor. The voice came again, the same disgust in its tone, but when I looked up I found it was not me he was addressing. Orochimaru stood glaring at instructor Hiroki, and it was clear that only The Hokage's presence kept the situation civil. There was an argument in progress, but I was far too preoccupied to bother following it.

The hive swarmed under my skin. It did not understand why it had been attacked and wanted to reply in kind. In a sick sort of way, I was happy about that. Struggling to keep myself separated from the maelstrom of confused aggression was far and away preferable to processing the horrors of being burned alive. Better to lock those memories in a small box and push them aside until they manifested as a health issue that someone else could fix. So focused on my task was I that I didn't even realize that medical had arrived until a light green glowing hand was placed over my eyes.

"Shhh, go to sleep dear. We'll have you all patched up by the time you wake."

Sayuri Yamanaka was not happy. She had not been the head of the village's Intelligence Division for the better part of two decades and yet here she was again, in these dim stone hallways, off to do someone else's job. God, had there always been so many stairs in this place? And why did it need to happen here anyway? Her home was as good as any to look into a mind.

"Young people these days," she muttered, "so inconsiderate."

Finally arriving at the proper door, she was surprised to see the number of people on the other side. Two members of Intelligence, The Hokage, Orochimaru, and an Aburame woman radiating so much killing intent Sayuri found it somewhat hard to breathe. "You all understand this is a mistake correct?"

"It is necessary."

"You are going to foster distrust in the village."

The Hokage gave her a stern look. "We cannot risk infiltration if she has been compromised."

"My daughter is not a spy!"

"This is not up for debate. Do your job."

The old woman let out a longsuffering sigh as she pushed the door the rest of the way open and stood to one side. "Alright, everyone out." Other than one young man who she had trained herself years ago they all simply looked at her with varying levels of confusion. "So inconsiderate," she muttered again.

"Mrs. Yamanaka," The Hokage started, but she cut him off before he could start arguing.

"I am long since retired, and did not want to come down here in the first place. There is a viewing room one door down if you must watch, but you will leave or I will leave. It matters little to me which." The killing intent in the room spiked but in the end, they all filed quietly out.

Finally having enough room to breathe in the small room, Sayuri Yamanaka moved to the metal table in the middle of the room and examined the young girl sleeping there. "It seems you've made some very important people very nervous. Let's find out why shall we." With that, the old woman placed her hands on either side of the girls head and quietly slipped inside.

 _Badum-badum_

The world seemed to pulse to the steady beat.

Looking down Sayuri found herself on a dirt road. To her right sat a small shop she recognized from Konoha. To her left though rose towers of glass and stone, so high they blocked out the sun.

"Hello? Can I help you?"

Sayuri turned at the unfamiliar language to see a girl, almost the same one as on the table. Suddenly she looked older, and as the old woman watched her hair shifted from deep black curls to bright red ones. Her face morphed from a polite smile to a sneer, as insectoid eyes began opening all along her left side.

 _Badum-badum_

 _"_ _You do not belong in this place. Leave or we will be forces to re-"_

"I'm sorry about them," the smiling girl said as she reached up and pealed the insectoid features away. Half her face was left childlike, while the other half resembled a much older woman. "They have a habit of getting territorial and violent when left to their own devices. Please have a seat." The girl motioned to a small park bench overlooking an enormous hole in the ground that seemed to be made of flesh.

 _Badum-badum-badum_

Sayuri had never felt this off-balance inside a mind before. The world looked like someone was trying to cram three locations into a space too small by half, and the girl kept slipping in and out of that strange other language. She now understood why she had been called.

"My name is Sayuri Yamanaka, may I ask yours?"

" _We are Akira Aburame_. It's a pleasure to meet you."

In the background the glass city dominated the view. The strangely dressed people walked calmly by alongside living, growling monstrosities of metal and glass. The place was cold and uninviting. And always that ever-present beating continued.

 _Badum-badum-badum_

Beside her the ever-shifting girl watched calmly. "You've come looking for information? I think you'll find little you understand here."

Pulling her eyes from the unnerving city Sayuri looked back with more calm than she felt. "I've come to assess whether or not you are a threat to the village."

 _"_ _We were attacked with no provocation. We are the ones who will be assessing worth and threat, not the other way around."_

"Then may I at least ask where this is, and who the red-haired woman is?"

The small girl smiled and looked out over the city. "No, you may not."

 _Badum-badum-badum_

Sighing, the old woman turned to one of the mirrored glass constructions. It seemed she would have to do this the hard way. With a flare of chakra, the reflections changed, shifting to hundreds of scenes of the red-haired woman.

 _Badum-badum-badum_

The beating in the background began to pick pace, but over the growling of the metal monstrosities the sound of that other language started flowing from the building.

 _Badum-badum-badum_

Another burst of chakra and the building next to it changed in much the same manner. She was about to start pushing to understand the language when the world suddenly went dark. The sounds of long ago conversations cut, and the only thing she could hear was the slow, ever-present pulsing.

 _Badum-badum-badum_

From the darkness she heard a buzzing and a childlike voice. "You have overstepped."

 _Badum-badum-badum_

She could now feel the crawling sensation of something on her skin _. "Perhaps we should do an investigation of our own."_

 _Badum-badum-badum_

Suddenly the chakra spiked, as the insects began burrowing under her skin. "I am well practiced in fighting for control in my mind. You are going to die here."

Sayuri sighed, and took a deep breath as the insects crawled to the bone.

By breath two, they had grown nearly twice there size off the devoured flesh.

Once more in, and out as they shifted to nothing more than clean water rolling over unmarked flesh. As she took control of the mindscape around her it changed to a small, brightly lit pond, the dark cave it once was only a reflection in its surface.

In the new light she could see the girl, face still shifting, but all of them wearing the same expression, fear.

 _Badum-badum-badum_

"I'm not here to hurt you child. I'm just here to alleviate suspicions of other ninjas infiltrating the village." She adopted her grandmother voice. "Let me out sweetheart. It will be painful if I have to force my way."

 _"_ _We will not allow those who have proven themselves to be enemies to continue living. Your lies, no matter how skillfully crafted, will not take root here."_

The ground fell away, and Sayuri found herself on a beach. Behind her, the cliffs rose on and on forever into the grey clouds. Before her, the sea fought the sky for dominance. Waves a hundred feet tall seemed only to feed the vortex of water heading straight for her. The old woman was impressed. Were she not the mind-walker that she was the girl may very well have done just as she claimed. But she was Sayuri Yamanaka and no amount of natural talent was going to change the outcome of this.

With a wave of her hand the storm began to drip like watercolors down the canvas of the horizon. The darker colors ran into the now calm sea as the lighter ones blended into the soft grey fog. Through the fog, the light of a lighthouse shone, and as it passed over her everything faded to white.

Breaking the connection Sayuri glanced at the still sleeping child. This had been a mistake from the outset. Glancing at the one way glass he nodded at the child. "She's had no contact with any enemy village. She holds a strange trifecta of presences, but she seems to have been that way from the start."

The Hokage's voice came over the speaker. "Explain."

"I don't think I can," Sayuri said, having had quite enough of this whole thing. "I could dig further, but she would fight me all the way down. By the time I found anything solid you would have little more than a vegetable left."

There was a pause as if the thought were being considered before the glass exploded. Turning around she saw the Aburame woman gently picking the sleeping girl up off the table. "I think that should be enough to quiet any complaints. There will be no further interrogations." Turning to the window she locked eyes with The Hokage. "If anyone touches my daughter again we will consider it an attack on the Aburame clan, and will respond appropriately."

"I hardly think that will be necessary," The Hokage said. The whole event seemed to have left him drained. He did not want to anger one of the noble clans any more than he had too.

The Aburame woman did not even feel the need to respond. Turning on her heel she vanished in a swirl of leaves, and Sayuri was left once again wondering why this could not have been done in her home.


End file.
